Professor
— Ph.D., 1975,
Cornell University

Professor; Distinguished Teaching Professor

Contact

Biography

Research interests

His current research and teaching interests include the history of popular culture and consumerism in twentieth-century Germany and Europe, the history and politics of memory, and the visual history of Germany in the twentieth century, with a specific focus upon photographic representations.

Courses taught

Twentieth Century Germany, Nazi Germany and the Holocaust, Germany since 1945. He has been a faculty member of the Normandy Scholar Program since 1993.

HIS 350L •
Germany Since Hitler

This seminar will analyze the effects of Hitler’s dictatorship upon German society, politics, economy and culture. It will explore the consequences of defeat, occupation, the Cold War and the political division of Germany after 1945. It will also compare and contrast the history and development of East and West Germany in the years between 1949 and 1989. Finally, the course will examine some of the consequences and prospects created by the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989 and the unification of East and West Germany in 1990.

Texts:

(Books marked with * are available as electronic resources from the UT-Library system at no charge with your UT-EID. Please feel free to read these materials on-line if you prefer.)

*David F. Crew, editor, Nazism and German Society, 1933-1945(London and New York,1995)

Primo Levi, Survival in Auschwitz

*Edit Scheffer, Burned Bridge.How East and West Germany Made the Iron Curtain(Oxford, 2012)

Hanna Schissler,editor, The Miracle Years. A Cultural History of West Germany 1949-1968(Princeton,2001)

Katherine Pence and Paul Betts, editors, Socialist Modern.East German Everyday Culture and Politics(Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2008).

We will also be working intensively with documents and images on this Website

http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/home.cfm

Grading:

This is a substantial writing component course. You will be required to write three critical essays (6-8 pages each) which analyze the problems posed by selected readings from the above assigned reading list (each of these three essays is worth 20% of your final grade). In addition, you are each required to give in-class reports on two different images from the Website, “German History in Documents and Images” http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/home.cfm . Each of these assignments counts for 10% of your final grade. Class attendance and participation count for 20 per cent of your final grade. I will be using the full range of +/- grades.

HIS 376G •
Hitler/Nazism/World War II-Hon

38880 •
Spring 2015
Meets
TTH 330pm-500pm GAR 0.128

How was an obscure, unemployed Austrian, who never rose above the rank of corporal in the German army, able to become the leader of a mass political movement which overthrew the most democratic political system Germany had ever known? Why did Germany begin the most devastating and brutal war in world history just two decades after having lost the First World War? Why did the Nazi state systematically murder 6 million Jews? How did the implementation of Nazi plans for a “racial empire” affect the lives of millions of Europeans during the Second World War? And what is the legacy of the Third Reich, for Germany today? These are the primary questions addressed by this course.

Texts:

Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front

David F. Crew, Hitler and the Nazis. A History in Documents (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005)[also available on-line at the PCL as an e-book]

We are also going to be working with the images at these two web-sites: http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/ and http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/.

Grading:

General participation in class discussions (i.e. attendance + involvement) counts for 20% of the overall grade. There will be a take-home mid-term document essay (5-6 pages, 20% of the final grade).There is no final exam per se but rather a second take-home document essay (5-6 pages, 20% of the final grade). Students are also reuired to write one short essay on any one of the books by Remarque or Levi (4-5 pages, 20% of final grade). Finally, students write two brief (2-3 page) analyses of the visual evidence (photographs, propaganda, election posters, etc.) discussed in class and/or those that are available on the web-sites listed above. Each of these two assignments is worth 10% of the final grade. I will be using the full range of +/- grades.

HIS 337N •
Germany In 20th Cen-Honors

Even from our vantage point at the end of this century, the Nazi period is still one of the most dramatic and destructive episodes in western European, indeed, in world history. Nazism is synonymous with terror, concentration camps and mass murder. Hitler’s war claimed the lives of tens of millions and left Europe in complete ruins. The Nazis have therefore given twentieth-century germany a world-historical significane it would otherwise have lacked. Whether we are looking at the Bismarckian, the Wilhelmine, or the Weimar periods, the central question -- the ‘German Problem’, as it has been termed -- is the same: why was Germany unable to establish a viable, liberal-democratic and parliamentary society which would have prevented the triumph of Nazism? The danger here resides in the temptation to view all of German history from about 1871 onwards as merely the pre-history of Nazism, thereby failing to deal with each period on its own terms. And what about the years after 1945? With the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945, german history appears to have experienced a radical break. The hostilities of the Cold War appeared to ensure a permanent division of Germany. But in the last few years, the dramatic changes in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe have revolutionized East Germany as well. The Berlin Wall is down, East and West Germany are once again joined together in one nation. Economic crisis, unemployment, waves of violence and dramatic changes in immigration policy have begun to conjure up the ghosts of the Nazi past. Even if Germany’s post-war democratic order is not fundamentally threatened, it is still clear that Germany has already begun to follow a quite different path than the one laid out for it after 1945. Has the nature of the ‘German Problem’ changed fundamentally since 1945, or do recent events suggest that the old questions may once again be relevant?

Mary Fullbrook,The Divided Nation; Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front; Richard Bessel(ed), Life in the Third Reich; Primo Levi, Survival in Auschwitz, Peter Schneider, The Wall Jumper

This course combines lectures and discussions of secondary readings as well as original historical documents(short selections) and contemporary visual materials such as photographs, newsreels, propaganda and election posters. The course assignments are designed to allow you to think and write about each of these different ways of gaining access to the German past.

There will be no formal mid-term or final exam. The writing requirements are:

(1)Two longer essay assignments (each 6-8 pages typewritten, each worth 30% of your final grade) which ask you to think critically about some of the major issues in twentieth century Germanhistory. The first assignment will deal with the period up to 1939. The second will focus on the period from 1939 to the present. Essay 1 will be due in mid-October. Essay 2 is due no later than the official exam date for this course.

(2)In addition to these two longer essay assignments, you will be asked to write one shorter essay (4-5 pages typewritten-worth 20% of the final grade) on any one of the books by Remarque, Bessel, Levi, or Schneider. This is not a book report. I will hand out specific questions on each of these books which you need to answer in your essays.

(3)Finally, you will be asked to write two short (2-3 page) analyses of visual evidence(photographs, propaganda, election posters, etc.) that I will include among the class materials, or internet sites on twentieth century Germany that you yourself have found(each of these 2 assignments is worth 10% of the final grade).

HIS 350L •
Germany Since Hitler

This seminar will analyze the effects of Hitler’s dictatorship upon German society, politics, economy and culture. It will explore the consequences of defeat, occupation, the Cold War and the political division of Germany after 1945. It will also compare and contrast the history and development of East and West Germany in the years between 1949 and 1989. Finally, the course will examine some of the consequences and prospects created by the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989 and the unification of East and West Germany in 1990.

REQUIRED READINGS:

(Books marked with * are available as electronic resources from the UT-Library system at no charge with your UT-EID. Please feel free to read these materials on-line if you prefer.)

*David F. Crew, editor, Nazism and German Society, 1933-1945(London and New York,1995)

Primo Levi, Survival in Auschwitz

*Edit Scheffer, Burned Bridge.How East and West Germany Made the Iron Curtain(Oxford, 2012)

Hanna Schissler,editor, The Miracle Years. A Cultural History of West Germany 1949-1968(Princeton,2001)

Katherine Pence and Paul Betts, editors, Socialist Modern.East German Everyday Culture and Politics(Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2008).

This is a substantial writing component course. You will be required to write three critical essays (6-8 pages each) which analyze the problems posed by selected readings from the above assigned reading list (each of these three essays is worth 20% of your final grade). In addition, you are each required to give in-class reports on two different images from the Website, “German History in Documents and Images” http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/home.cfm . Each of these assignments counts for 10% of your final grade. Class attendance and participation count for 20 per cent of your final grade. I will be using the full range of +/- grades.

HIS 376G •
Hitler/Nazism/World War II-Hon

40165 •
Spring 2014
Meets
TTH 330pm-500pm GAR 0.128

How was an obscure, unemployed Austrian, who never rose above the rank of corporal in the German army, able to become the leader of a mass political movement which overthrew the most democratic political system Germany had ever known? Why did Germany begin the most devastating and brutal war in world history just two decades after having lost the First World War? Why did the Nazi state systematically murder 6 million Jews? How did the implementation of Nazi plans for a “racial empire” affect the lives of millions of Europeans during the Second World War? And what is the legacy of the Third Reich, for Germany today? These are the primary questions addressed by this course.

REQUIRED BOOKS:

Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front

David F. Crew, Hitler and the Nazis. A History in Documents (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005)[also available on-line at the PCL as an e-book]

A distinctive feature of this course is the fact that we will be working extensively with original documents, in translation. This will give you a more direct and immediate connection to the past, will allow you to experience, at first hand, the language and ideas of the period. It will also allow you to engage directly in the process of interpretation. Rather than simply ingesting the arguments of historians who write about the Nazi period, you will have the opportunity to analyze the "raw materials" with which historians themselves work. The first and second document essays will ask you to comment on the meaning and significance of several documents(or parts of documents) assigned for the class. You will be given a copy of the document(s) which will be clearly identified for you (i.e. author, date, place). These are, therefore, not identification quizzes; your job is rather to write an essay in which you show why the particular documents are important in terms of the larger history of the period from which they derive and what they tell us about that particular phase in the rise or development of Nazism.

Your general participation in class discussions (i.e. attendance + involvement) counts for 20% of the overall grade. There will be a take-home mid-term document essay (5-6 pages, 20% of the final grade).There is no final exam per se but you will have a second take-home document essay (5-6 pages, 20% of the final grade). You will also be asked to write one short essay on any one of the books by Remarque or Levi (4-5 pages, 20% of final grade). Finally, you will be asked to write two brief (2-3 page) analyses of the visual evidence(photographs, propaganda, election posters, etc.) discussed in class and/or those that are available on the web-sites listed above. Each of these two assignments is worth 10% of the final grade. I will be using the full range of +/- grades.

HIS 350L •
Germany Since Hitler

This seminar will analyze the effects of Hitler’s dictatorship upon German society, politics, economy and culture. It will explore the consequences of defeat, occupation, the Cold War and the political division of Germany after 1945. It will also compare and contrast the history and development of East and West Germany in the years between 1949 and 1989. Finally, the course will examine some of the consequences and prospects created by the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989 and the unification of East and West Germany in 1990.

HIS 376G •
Hitler/Nazism/World War II-Hon

39750 •
Spring 2013
Meets
TTH 330pm-500pm GAR 0.128

How was an obscure, unemployed Austrian, who never rose above the rank of corporal in the German army, able to become the leader of a mass political movement which overthrew the most democratic political system Germany had ever known? Why did Germany begin the most devastating and brutal war in world history just two decades after having lost the First World War? Why did the Nazi state systematically murder 6 million Jews?

HIS 337N •
Germany In 20th Cen-Honors

Description: Despite the many calamities it caused and experienced in the twentieth century, the German state has persisted into our present as a leader in European politics, economy and society and an important international actor. To understand why this would be the case, this course treats the history of Germany in the “long” twentieth century, that is, from the intermediate background of WWI and the establishment of a unified German Empire (1871) to the present. Class time will alternate between lecture and discussion of primary source readings. Topics to be covered include: German economy, geography, and demography; national unification; German colonialism; Wilhelmine society and culture; the social and political status of German Jewry; the background, causes, and experience of WWI; the failed Communist Revolution of 1919; the emergence and decline of the Weimar state; the economic crisis of the interwar years; Weimar culture; National Socialism and the Third Reich; the experience and effects of WWII; the Holocaust; the constitution of East and West German states, societies, and cultures; the “economic miracle”; the Cold War in Germany; 1968 and its social effects; the revolutions of 1989; reunification; the experience of non-Germans in Germany since 1945; and Germany in the European Union. Where possible we will consider these themes in global context. Throughout, emphasis will fall on the reading and interpretation of primary sources in English translation, including text, film, photographs, and music.

Possible readings (selections – please consult the instructor for the final reading list before purchasing any items):

HIS 350L •
Germany Since Hitler

This seminar will analyze the effects of Hitler’s dictatorship upon German society, politics, economy and culture. It will explore the consequences of defeat, occupation, the Cold War and the political division of Germany after 1945. It will also compare and contrast the history and development of East and West Germany in the years between 1949 and 1989. Finally, the course will examine some of the consequences and prospects created by the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989 and the unification of the two Germanies in 1990.

Texts

David Crew, editor, Nazism and German Society, 1933-1945(London and New York,1995)

Primo Levi, Survival in Auschwitz

Hanna Schissler,editor, The Miracle Years. A Cultural History of West Germany 1949-1968(Princeton,2001)

Katherine Pence and Paul Betts,editors, Socialist Modern.East German Everyday Culture and Politics(Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2008)

Daphne Berdahl, Where the World Ended. Re-Unification and Identity in the German Borderland((Berkeley/Los Angeles/London, 1999)

Grading

This is a substantial writing component course. You will be required to write three critical essays(6-8 pages each) which analyze the problems posed by selected readings from the above assigned reading list (each of these three essays is worth 20% of your final grade). You are encouraged to hand in rough drafts of each of these longer essays no less than 10 days before the due date for each assignment. In addition, you are required to write 2 short essays (2-3 pages in length) each of which analyzes examples of the visual materials I will hand out in class or a film relevant to this course(to be approved by the instructor). Each of these assignments counts for 10% of your final grade. Class participation counts for 20 per cent of your final grade.

HIS 376G •
Hitler/Nazism/World War II-Hon

39630 •
Spring 2012
Meets
TTH 330pm-500pm GAR 0.128

How was an obscure, unemployed Austrian, who never rose above the rank of corporal in the German army, able to become the leader of a mass political movement which overthrew the most democratic political system Germany had ever known? Why did Germany begin the most devastating and brutal war in world history just two decades after having lost the First World War? Why did the Nazi state systematically murder 6 million Jews? How did the implementation of Nazi plans for a “racial empire” affect the lives of millions of Europeans during the Second World War? And what is the legacy of the Third Reich, for Germany today? These are the primary questions addressed by this course.

Texts

Peter Fritzsche, Germans into Nazis, Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front, Noakes and G. Pridham (editors), Nazism. A History in Documents and Eyewitness Accounts, 1919-1945 (University of Exeter Press Edition: Volumes 2 &3) Primo Levi, Survival in Auschwitz, Brian Ladd, The Ghosts of Berlin. Confronting German History in the Urban Landscape

Grading

Your general participation in class discussions (i.e. attendance + involvement) counts for 20% of the overall grade. The take-home mid-term document test (5-6 pages) is worth 20% of the final grade. There is no final exam per se but you will have a second take-home document test (5-6 pages) which is worth 20% of the final grade.. You will also be asked to write one short review of any one of the books by Remarque, or Levi (4-5 pages, 20% of final grade). Finally, you will be asked to write two brief (2-3 page) analyses of the visual evidence(photographs, propaganda, election posters, etc.) that I will include among the class materials, or of recommended recent films on Nazi Germany. Each of these two assignments is worth 10% of the final grade.

HIS 350L •
Germany Since Hitler

This seminar will analyze the effects of Hitler’s dictatorship upon German society, politics, economy and culture. It will explore the consequences of defeat, occupation, the Cold War and the political division of Germany after 1945. It will also compare and contrast the history and development of East and West Germany in the years between 1949 and 1989. Finally, the course will examine some of the consequences and prospects created by the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989 and the unification of the two Germanies in 1990.

Texts

David Crew, editor, Nazism and German Society, 1933-1945(London and New York,1995)

Daphne Berdahl, Where the World Ended. Re-Unification and Identity in the German Borderland((Berkeley/Los Angeles/London, 1999)

Grading

This is a substantial writing component course. You will be required to write three critical essays(6-8 pages each) which analyze the problems posed by selected readings from the above assigned reading list(each of these three essays is worth 20% of your final grade). You are encouraged to hand in rough drafts of each of these longer essays no less than 10 days before the due date for each assignment. In addition, you are required to write 2 short essays(2-3 pages in length)each of which analyzes examples of the visual materials I will hand out in class or a film relevant to this course(to be approved by the instructor). Each of these assignments counts for 10% of your final grade. Class participation counts for 20 per cent of your final grade.

HIS 376G •
Hitler, Nazism, & World War II

39935 •
Spring 2011
Meets
TTH 330pm-500pm GAR 0.128

Restricted to students in the Normandy Scholars Program. Application deadline was October 4, 2010; enrollment is closed.

How was an obscure, unemployed Austrian, who never rose above the rank of corporal in the German army, able to become the leader of a mass political movement which overthrew the most democratic political system Germany had ever known? Why did Germany begin the most devastating and brutal war in world history just two decades after having lost the First World War? Why did the Nazi state systematically murder 6 million Jews? How did the implementation of Nazi plans for a “racial empire” affect the lives of millions of Europeans during the Second World War? And what is the legacy of the Third Reich, for Germany today? These are the primary questions addressed by this course.

Texts

Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front

David F. Crew, Hitler and the Nazis. A History in Documents (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005)

[You can find good time-lines for the history of Hitler’s rise to power, for World War II in Europe, and for the Holocaust on the Internet at http://www.historyplace.com/index.html. Each chronology provides detailed information on selected subjects, and a large number of contemporary photographs.

We are also going to be working with the documents and images at this web-site: http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/. ]

Grading

Your general participation in class discussions (i.e. attendance + involvement) counts for 20% of the overall grade. The take-home mid-term document test (5-6 pages) is worth 20% of the final grade. There is no final exam per se but you will have a second take-home document test (5-6 pages) which is worth 20% of the final grade.. You will also be asked to write one short review of any one of the books by Remarque, or Levi (4-5 pages, 20% of final grade). Finally, you will be asked to write two brief (2-3 page) analyses of the visual evidence(photographs, propaganda, election posters, etc.) that I will include among the class materials, or of recommended recent films on Nazi Germany. Each of these two assignments is worth 10% of the final grade.

HIS 376G •
Hitler/Nazism/World War II-W

How was an obscure, unemployed Austrian, who never rose above the rank of corporal in the German army, able to become the leader of a mass political movement which overthrew the most democratic political system Germany had ever known? Why did Germany begin the most devastating and brutal war in world history just two decades after having lost the First World War? Why did the Nazi state systematically murder 6 million Jews? How did the implementation of Nazi plans for a “racial empire” affect the lives of millions of Europeans during the Second World War? And what is the legacy of the Third Reich, for Germany today? These are the primary questions addressed by this course.

Texts:

Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front

David F. Crew, Hitler and the Nazis. A History in Documents (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005)[also available on-line at the PCL as an e-book]

We are also going to be working with the images at these two web-sites: http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/ and http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/.

Grading:

General participation in class discussions (i.e. attendance + involvement) counts for 20% of the overall grade. There will be a take-home mid-term document essay (5-6 pages, 20% of the final grade).There is no final exam per se but rather a second take-home document essay (5-6 pages, 20% of the final grade). Students are also reuired to write one short essay on any one of the books by Remarque or Levi (4-5 pages, 20% of final grade). Finally, students write two brief (2-3 page) analyses of the visual evidence (photographs, propaganda, election posters, etc.) discussed in class and/or those that are available on the web-sites listed above. Each of these two assignments is worth 10% of the final grade. I will be using the full range of +/- grades.

HIS 337N •
Germany In The 20th Century-W

29700 •
Fall 2009
Meets
TTH 330pm-500pm GAR 0.120

THE PURPOSE OF THE COURSE: Hitler and the Nazis have given twentieth-century Germany a world-historical significance it would otherwise have lacked. Even from our vantage point, the Nazi regime is still one of the most dramatic and destructive episodes in western European, indeed, in world history. Nazism is synonymous with terror, concentration camps and mass murder. Hitler's war claimed the lives of tens of millions and left Europe in complete ruins. The danger resides in the temptation to view all of German history from the end of the nineteenth-century onwards as merely the pre-history of Nazism, thereby failing to deal with each period on its own terms. And what do we do with the more than half a century of German history since 1945? With the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945, the course of German history appears to have experienced a radical break. New political and social systems were imposed upon the two halves of the divided Germany by the victors. The hostilities of the Cold War appeared to ensure a permanent division of Germany, which in 1961 assumed a compelling symbolic form, the Berlin Wall. But in 1989, the dramatic changes in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe revolutionized East Germany as well. The Berlin Wall came down, East and West Germany were once again joined together in one nation. What exactly this newest version of the German nation will look like in ten or twenty years is still unclear.

In the first half of the course, we will begin by discussing the origins and effects of World War One(1914-1918), then move on to the German Revolution(1918-1919) and the Weimar Republic(l9l8-l933), the Nazi regime (1933-1945) and the Holocaust. The questions we will focus on here are: Was Germany’s first experiment with democracy between 1918 and 1933 doomed to failure? What factors contributed to the rise of Nazism and how did the Nazi regime affect Germany and Europe? Were all vestiges of Nazism destroyed in 1945? In the second half of the semester we will discuss the history of Germany in the Cold War(1945-1989). We will end by talking about the consequences of the end of the Cold War and the fall of the Berlin Wall (1989 to the present). Here, the main questions will be: Did, West and East Germany follow fundamentally new paths? What clues can be found in the histories of the Federal Republic in West Germany and the German Democratic Republic in East Germany since 1949 that may indicate the possibilities for change in the future? How does the unification of East and West Germany affect Germany's future role in Europe and the world?

Required Reading:Mary Fullbrook,The Divided NationErich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western FrontRichard Bessel(ed)Life in the Third ReichPrimo Levi, Survival in AuschwitzPeter Schneider, The Wall JumperPlease also make sure to bookmark the following web-site. We will be working extensively with materials on this site: http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/

Assignments/Grading:

This course combines lectures and discussions of secondary readings as well as original historical documents (short selections) and contemporary visual materials such as photographs, newsreels, propaganda and election posters. The writing assignments are designed to allow you to think and write about each of these different ways of gaining access to the German past. There will be no formal mid-term or final exam. Plus/minus grades will be assigned for the final grade. This class is a Significant Writing Component Course (SWC). The writing requirements are:

(1)Two longer essay assignments (each 6-8 pages typewritten, each worth 30% of your final grade) which ask you to think critically about some of the major issues in twentieth century German history. The first assignment will deal with the period up to 1939. The second will focus on the period from 1939 to the present. Essay 1 will be due on October 30. Essay 2 is due no later than the official exam date for this course, December 9. You must submit one rough draft of each of these essays.

(2)In addition to these two longer essay assignments, you will be asked to write one shorter essay (4-5 pages typewritten­worth 20% of the final grade) on any one of the books by Remarque, Bessel, Levi, or Schneider. This is not a book report. I will hand out specific questions on each of these books which you need to answer in your essays. You must submit one rough draft of this assignment. Due Dates listed on syllabus

(3)Finally, you will be asked to write two short (2-3 page) analyses of the original documents, or visual evidence(photographs, propaganda, election posters, etc.) that I will include among the class handouts, or internet sites on twentieth century Germany, or current media discussions of modern German history that you yourself have found(each of these 2 assignments is worth 10% of the final grade). You must submit one rough draft of each of these essays. Due Dates: any time during the semester but no later than the official exam date for this course, December 9.

HIS 337N •
Germany In The 20th Cen-Hon-W

39925 •
Fall 2009
Meets
TTH 330pm-500pm GAR 0.120

Description: Despite the many calamities it caused and experienced in the twentieth century, the German state has persisted into our present as a leader in European politics, economy and society and an important international actor. To understand why this would be the case, this course treats the history of Germany in the “long” twentieth century, that is, from the intermediate background of WWI and the establishment of a unified German Empire (1871) to the present. Class time will alternate between lecture and discussion of primary source readings. Topics to be covered include: German economy, geography, and demography; national unification; German colonialism; Wilhelmine society and culture; the social and political status of German Jewry; the background, causes, and experience of WWI; the failed Communist Revolution of 1919; the emergence and decline of the Weimar state; the economic crisis of the interwar years; Weimar culture; National Socialism and the Third Reich; the experience and effects of WWII; the Holocaust; the constitution of East and West German states, societies, and cultures; the “economic miracle”; the Cold War in Germany; 1968 and its social effects; the revolutions of 1989; reunification; the experience of non-Germans in Germany since 1945; and Germany in the European Union. Where possible we will consider these themes in global context. Throughout, emphasis will fall on the reading and interpretation of primary sources in English translation, including text, film, photographs, and music.

Possible readings (selections – please consult the instructor for the final reading list before purchasing any items):

HIS 376G •
Hitler, Nazism, And Wwii-Hon-W

39325 •
Spring 2009
Meets
TTH 330pm-500pm GAR 2.128

How was an obscure, unemployed Austrian, who never rose above the rank of corporal in the German army, able to become the leader of a mass political movement which overthrew the most democratic political system Germany had ever known? Why did Germany begin the most devastating and brutal war in world history just two decades after having lost the First World War? Why did the Nazi state systematically murder 6 million Jews? How did the implementation of Nazi plans for a “racial empire” affect the lives of millions of Europeans during the Second World War? And what is the legacy of the Third Reich, for Germany today? These are the primary questions addressed by this course.

Texts:

Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front

David F. Crew, Hitler and the Nazis. A History in Documents (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005)[also available on-line at the PCL as an e-book]

We are also going to be working with the images at these two web-sites: http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/ and http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/.

Grading:

General participation in class discussions (i.e. attendance + involvement) counts for 20% of the overall grade. There will be a take-home mid-term document essay (5-6 pages, 20% of the final grade).There is no final exam per se but rather a second take-home document essay (5-6 pages, 20% of the final grade). Students are also reuired to write one short essay on any one of the books by Remarque or Levi (4-5 pages, 20% of final grade). Finally, students write two brief (2-3 page) analyses of the visual evidence (photographs, propaganda, election posters, etc.) discussed in class and/or those that are available on the web-sites listed above. Each of these two assignments is worth 10% of the final grade. I will be using the full range of +/- grades.

All architectural drawings are from the Alexander Architectural Archive at the University of Texas at Austin, sheets 6, 13, 14, and 17. The logo was inspired by a detail from the drawings. Images are either copyrighted by the University or used under fair use laws. Any unauthorized use or duplication is prohibited.